Giants Club

A Forum of leaders for combating the elephant poaching crisis in Africa

The goal of the Giants Club is to protect half of Africa’s remaining 415,000 elephants by 2020.

This will be achieved through:

Providing Frontline Protection

Space for Giants will audit frontline protection capacity in critical elephant ranges, train, mentor and resource wildlife rangers and build the capacity of the judiciary to effectively protect African elephants from poachers. Our work includes:

Training and equipping rangers with the latest anti-poaching techniques and equipment to enable them to carry out their jobs safely and effectively. Over a thousand rangers have been killed in the line of duty since 2003.

Training and equipping rapid response teams to respond to poaching incidents. In northern Kenya, these teams have contributed to a 84% decline in the illegal killing of elephants since 2012. We now want to emulate this success in other Giants Club member states.

Training police, prosecutors, magistrates and the judiciary on wildlife crime and trafficking and building capacity along the entire criminal justice ‘pathway’ that begins with legislative frameworks, and covers intelligence, investigations, arrest, charge, prosecution and trial. Tens of thousands of elephants and hundreds of rhinos are killed every year due to the illegal wildlife trade. One of the major factors contributing to the proliferation of this crime is the absence of meaningful deterrents as wildlife crime is characterised by low conviction rates and low penalties.

Launched at the London Conference in 2014, this African-led initiative, implemented by Stop Ivory, seeks to audit national ivory stockpiles, put these beyond economic use, ban the domestic trade in ivory, put in place a moratorium on the international trade in ivory and deliver National Elephant Action Plans in each elephant range state.

Campaigning and lobbying

Campaigning and lobbying at the highest levels to support elephant protection, and encourage the reduction in demand for ivory in key ivory-­consuming states.